Prototyping – Build on your Ideas

Now its time to do some work. It is time to build the first prototype. As the main purpose we want to visualize your thoughts and ideas so we can create a better understanding about what is gone happen and how. So how does it work now.

What do we have so far

In the last sections we defined a detailed problem statement and created a short description about it. What are we looking for? So on our idea wall we have the huge problem statement. Next to it there are groups of ideas. We collected ideas on how to solve the problem statement we have. These are grouped together on some bullet points. Now we need to work with these.

Form ideas into solutions

What you need to do now is to take the best ideas and transform them into solutions. What are possible solutions and should they work. So define what you want to build now. A software, hardware, a process or whatever is needed to solve the problem statement. So think what you want to build as your first prototype and create a drawing and description for it. Create a plan for the next steps. What are the major topics and how they work. The plan should consists a huge drawing about your prototype or some major steps if you want to create a software solution. At the end you should have a roadmap for the next steps and what needs to be created. Now it is time to build.

Build the Prototype

Now you need to build what’s in your mind. But you should collect some materials first. Look around what you have available. All materials you can find and useful are ok. Paper, carton, pencils, glue, wooden parts, even Lego can be used. By the way to have a huge box of Lego available to prototype is a wonderful way on how to do prototyping. So you should collect a huge amount of materials to

Source Pixabay by tookapic

And then – ready – steady – go!

Now start to draw, cut, glue, paint and build your prototype. Most important rule the solution must not be perfect. The major task is to visual the functionality and how it works. The tester and customer need to be able to identify the main purpose and the thoughts behind the solution. So put your focus on this on do not put unnecessary efforts into the building process. Limit the amount of time to keep the speed and effectiveness in the process. Build a usable prototype to share your thoughts and ideas to a customer. No matter how does it look like. Different teams with the same task would create very different types of prototypes.

If you have more than one possible solution you should create teams and build two or three prototypes. But you should only build one by team to keep and use the power of the team to build the best possible solution. A bit of competition between the teams can also help to improve the solution.

At the End

After a lot of fun tinkering and building you should end up with your build prototypes. Take a look at it and take some breath. Let each team prepare a short presentation about there work and what it is made for. What are the key facts and the strongest arguments why it is the best possible solution.

And now it is time to test it. Put the customer into the game. Next step in the Design Thinking Process

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